How does one become a master printer?
hug...@gmail.com
one become a master printer? I'm not looking for a quick recipe, but I
want to know what it takes. Is it a matter of getting a good
background in photography at a school, landing a job in a lab, honing
your craft for years, and building a reputation? I'd really appreciate
it if the printers out there could share how they did it. How did you
become a master printer?
UC
Making many bad negatives...
You should not have to be a master printer. Simply make good negatives
and you'll have an easier time of it. Nobody cares how much or how
little work it takes, it's the results that count. If you can make a
great print right off the bat because you have a good negative, well,
that's just your secret.
Draco
You said it yourself, honing your craft and building
a reputation. UC also had it right. By learning to
make a good negative in the first place it becomes
easier to make good prints. Also learning to
make good prints from crappy negatives will
allow you to improve your printing skills.
Keep working at it.
Draco
Getting even isn't good enough.
UC
to make great prints from good negatives, or good prints from crappy
negatives?
I am from the minimalist school of printing. That means I interefere
very little (these days) with the printing process. To me, even
'expert' manipulations are quite noticable and distracting. I have
looked through Salgado's books, for instance, and have noticed rather
obvious manipulations (lines near the horizon, etc.). I would really
prefer little or none.
Scott W
I am probably going to get blasted by somebody for this but I would
recommend doing some playing of the images with a program like
Photoshop. Getting a feel for the range of densities in the negative
and what it takes to translate these into a print will help when doing
optical prints. This will also help show you what negatives there is
simply no hope for making a good print from. If there is too small a
density range in the negative it is going to be very hard to make a
good optical print from it even using high contrast paper.
It would also help to bracket your shots for a while to get a feel for
what exposure will produce what kind of print. I have seen more bad
prints from underexposed negatives then over, some experimentation will
give you are feel for this. For my own part when I see a light
negative I know it is going to be a problem getting any kind of good
print from it.
It has been a while since I have done an optical print but the
fundamental problems remain the same. Most of the poor prints I have
seen are missing either the full white or good blacks. It can be more
then a little tricky to get the shadows exposed far enough to get good
blacks and yet keep the highlights white. So what is the definition of
a master printer, one who can take a negative that has highlights that
are not nearly dense enough and still get a good print using burning
and dodging or someone who only prints from negatives that have a good
range to start with?
There is a lot of science and math to really understanding the whole
photographic process, it is well worth while learning it well.
On a business aspect of it, I believe you are going to have a hard time
finding a good client base that wants prints done from a "master
printer". I assume you are thinking about making prints from others
negatives. Most of the people I know that are still having optical
prints made are doing so themselves. I think you are looking at a
very small market.
Scott
G- Blank
"Scott W" <bip...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> hug...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Here's a question that I haven't seen asked on the internet: how does
> > one become a master printer? I'm not looking for a quick recipe, but I
> > want to know what it takes. Is it a matter of getting a good
> > background in photography at a school, landing a job in a lab, honing
> > your craft for years, and building a reputation? I'd really appreciate
> > it if the printers out there could share how they did it. How did you
> > become a master printer?
>
Not going to blast you but,has nothing to do with "Darkroom unless
your sitting in one to post the following,
> On a business aspect of it, I believe you are going to have a hard time
> finding a good client base that wants prints done from a "master
> printer". I assume you are thinking about making prints from others
> negatives. Most of the people I know that are still having optical
> prints made are doing so themselves. I think you are looking at a
> very small market.
>
> Scott
I do optical prints because it saves money, I can charge X dollars
my competition is spending just to have the prints made. But cheaper is
not always viewed as better, its viewed as suspect therefore actually
being a master printer is preferred to claiming to be one :)
--
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918
greg_____photo(dot)com
UC
Scott W wrote:
>
> I am probably going to get blasted by somebody for this but I would
> recommend doing some playing of the images with a program like
> Photoshop.
Nope, this will be of no help whatsoever. It's an idiotic suggestion.
Scott W
> In article <1141348326....@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> "Scott W" <bip...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > hug...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Here's a question that I haven't seen asked on the internet: how does
> > > one become a master printer? I'm not looking for a quick recipe, but I
> > > want to know what it takes. Is it a matter of getting a good
> > > background in photography at a school, landing a job in a lab, honing
> > > your craft for years, and building a reputation? I'd really appreciate
> > > it if the printers out there could share how they did it. How did you
> > > become a master printer?
> >
> Not going to blast you but,has nothing to do with "Darkroom unless
> your sitting in one to post the following,
for the density range that the negative has. When I scan negative I
normally scan it as if it was a positive and then convert it myself to
a positive image. I really think going through this exercise would
help a lot of people make better optical prints, or at least shoot
better negatives. When you scan a negative (as a positive) and you see
that the left side of the histogram is pretty much missing it gives you
a pretty good idea that this is going to be a hard negative to print.
Scott
Scott
G- Blank
"Scott W" <bip...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I've thought this time to time, its a hard call in my book because part
of what make my prints good is intuitive I remember back to what I
intended while printing-IN the dark and mostly get it or get better. and
seeing the image on screen
can frighten many into not printing or may encourage many to say
THIS is as good as it get without the process of remembering what
was intended or seeing what the potential is -Not saying your wrong just
presenting a different "" MY View",
Tom Phillips
> I've thought this time to time, its a hard call in my book because part
> of what make my prints good is intuitive I remember back to what I
> intended while printing-IN the dark and mostly get it or get better. and
> seeing the image on screen
> can frighten many into not printing or may encourage many to say
> THIS is as good as it get without the process of remembering what
> was intended or seeing what the potential is -Not saying your wrong just
> presenting a different "" MY View",
Never mind scotty is full of it. Want to
make a good print, better learn something
about sensitomerty, rather than scanners,
first...And yeah, that takes both time and
photo education (whether by reading or in
college classrooms...)
Gareth
printing. Then doing it.
But, a fine print of an ordinary photograph is nothing.
Mike King
Practice, try new things, read. There are a lot of alternate processes out
there and techniques that are in danger of becoming obsolete since the
sources for the materials are disappearing, so try them now.
Good to retain finished copies of all your "experiments" and keep a good
Daybook or Journal so you can recall what you did (also good). I tend to
write my notes on the back of my prints. Parker ball points write well on
RC prints, and RC is plenty good for experimentation (possible exception for
RC and the next thing on my list to explore is lith printing). Film notes
in 3x5 spiral notebooks that are transcribed to the back of contact sheets.
I don't obsess in the Zonie fashion about every frame but will take general
notes, filters used, times and type of developer, etc. (I don't mean this in
a bad way, I'm not trying to knock their methods, but I learned early on
that I'm not disciplined enough to take notes on every exposure.)
I also print model releases on the back of contact sheets for models to
sign. I get a release when I shoot and then get the second release signed
when they prick up their copies. The release then gets filed with the
negatives (almost like a system).
Ansel Adams used to call it practicing the scales, he was also a very good
pianist and made the analogy to music frequently in his writings. Good
teacher, excellent photographer, excelled in the darkroom, but the last
exhibit I viewed I was surprised at the sloppy way he spotted prints (may
have been the "help' but I was tickled to know there is one-and only
one!--area in which I consider myself at par with the master).
Vestal also goes on at length about ways to explore our medium, film
exposure and darkroom testing are very much center to his books.
Ralph Hattersly is another, much of his "avant garde" work looks pretty
dated now but he had a really big bag of darkroom techniques, even if you
never print anything that looks like his stuff he had some pretty slick
tricks.
I think it's good to hang your work on the wall but hang some of the
"failures" as well as keepers, you may figure out what it was you didn't
like about a "bad" print or you may change your mind and decide you want to
explore that technique later on!
That and 20-30 years will make almost anyone a "master".
--
darkroommike
<hug...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1141250638.2...@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
cgrady
>From 1980 to 1991 I worked up to 40 hours per week in a custom B&W
darkroom. I was ordering 3 1/2 by 5 then 4 by 5 paper a case at a
time. This was so I could keep the same emulsion number. During that
time I used about 250,000 sheets of regular prints. I have no idea how
much large paper I used. I started doing darkroom work in 1967. I
worked for a man that had taken classes from Ansel Adams. I printed
and developed negatives from 110 to 8x10. I enlarged everything from
110 to 4x5.
I AM NOT A MASTER PRINTER.
Good luck trying to become a master printer. The only thing I can
recommend is roll your sleeves up, get busy, and lose any thought of
having a social life.
Nick Zentena
> My short answer to this is always: buy a bigger garbage can.
>
> Practice, try new things, read. There are a lot of alternate processes out
> there and techniques that are in danger of becoming obsolete since the
> sources for the materials are disappearing, so try them now.
>
> Good to retain finished copies of all your "experiments" and keep a good
> Daybook or Journal so you can recall what you did (also good). I tend to
> write my notes on the back of my prints. Parker ball points write well on
Me to.
Nick
--
---------------------------------------
"Digital the new ice fishing"
---------------------------------------
Greg "Blank" - Lizard King.
"Mike King" <mike...@cableone.net> wrote:
> but the last
> exhibit I viewed I was surprised at the sloppy way he spotted prints (may
> have been the "help' but I was tickled to know there is one-and only
> one!--area in which I consider myself at par with the master).
I know what you mean, i saw the exhibit just after he died and was
surprised to note the spotting issues.
> I think it's good to hang your work on the wall but hang some of the
> "failures" as well as keepers, you may figure out what it was you didn't
> like about a "bad" print or you may change your mind and decide you want to
> explore that technique later on!
I nice big, cork bulletin board in the darkroom works well-for failures.
>
> That and 20-30 years will make almost anyone a "master".
"Geesh" maybe in another 20 some of us will be considered master
newsgroup posters ;0)
--
The things we hate most in life often turn out to be a mirror image
of ourselves. Better not to hate.
Findmedirectly - "infoatgregblankphoto.com"
Art Reitsch
Art
UC
good prints. A good negative prints itself. You are just the 'midwife'
to the birth. As imentioned before, I do far less burning and dodging
these days than I used to. I tolerate far less manipulation, and even
expert manipulation is all-too-visible. I have come to prefer the
unaltered print for the most part.
Consider this iamge:
http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/salgado/salgado_covers.jpg
To my eyes, the burning-in of the sky is all too evident (look at the
rim of the hills, where the slight denisty from the burning in of the
sky overlaps the rim)). The figure at the right has been held back.
Same thing here:
http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/salgado/salgado_ethiopia.jpg
The face has been dodged.
I believe these are prints made by a 'master printer', but I would NOT
print them this way at all.
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> Well, here's another thought. Hire the services of a master printer and
> stand by his side for a week watching how he works, then have him watch you
> work and help you along. Expensive, but it's doable if you enroll in a class
> with six or seven other people for the experience. I have a sample of one:
> the basic darkroom class with Bruce Barnbaum. He is also offering a master
> printing class for those who have completed the basic class, or who submit
> a few 8x10s to show him that you are ready. I'm not saying he's better than
> anyone else, only that he is a great printer and teacher and can save you
> a few years of garbage can trial and error work. I have no affiliation with
> him so here's his website: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.barnbaum.com">www.barnbaum.com</a><br>
> Art<br>
> <br>
> cgrady wrote:<br>
> <blockquote type="cite"
> cite="mid1141393882...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com">
> <pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:hug...@gmail.com">hug...@gmail.com</a> wrote:
> </pre>
> <blockquote type="cite">
> <pre wrap="">Here's a question that I haven't seen asked on the internet: how does
> one become a master printer? I'm not looking for a quick recipe, but I
> want to know what it takes. Is it a matter of getting a good
> background in photography at a school, landing a job in a lab, honing
> your craft for years, and building a reputation? I'd really appreciate
> it if the printers out there could share how they did it. How did you
> become a master printer?
> </pre>
> </blockquote>
> <pre wrap=""><!---->
> >From 1980 to 1991 I worked up to 40 hours per week in a custom B&W
> darkroom. I was ordering 3 1/2 by 5 then 4 by 5 paper a case at a
> time. This was so I could keep the same emulsion number. During that
> time I used about 250,000 sheets of regular prints. I have no idea how
> much large paper I used. I started doing darkroom work in 1967. I
> worked for a man that had taken classes from Ansel Adams. I printed
> and developed negatives from 110 to 8x10. I enlarged everything from
> 110 to 4x5.
> I AM NOT A MASTER PRINTER.
>
> Good luck trying to become a master printer. The only thing I can
> recommend is roll your sleeves up, get busy, and lose any thought of
> having a social life.
>
> </pre>
> </blockquote>
> <br>
> </body>
> </html>
>
> --------------090205040005010208020206--
UC
Art Reitsch wrote:
> Well, here's another thought. Hire the services of a master printer and
> stand by his side for a week watching how he works, then have him watch
> you work and help you along. Expensive, but it's doable if you enroll
> in a class with six or seven other people for the experience. I have a
> sample of one: the basic darkroom class with Bruce Barnbaum. He is
> also offering a master printing class for those who have completed the
> basic class, or who submit a few 8x10s to show him that you are ready.
> I'm not saying he's better than anyone else, only that he is a great
> printer and teacher and can save you a few years of garbage can trial
> and error work. I have no affiliation with him so here's his website:
> www.barnbaum.com
> Art
>
> c
Other examples. The sky burn-in is obvious:
http://masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado_dispute_full.html
http://masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado_nautec_full.html
Scott W
> Be wary of the notion tht a great deal of expertise is required to get
> good prints. A good negative prints itself. You are just the 'midwife'
> to the birth. As imentioned before, I do far less burning and dodging
> these days than I used to. I tolerate far less manipulation, and even
> expert manipulation is all-too-visible. I have come to prefer the
> unaltered print for the most part.
>
> Consider this iamge:
>
> http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/salgado/salgado_covers.jpg
>
> To my eyes, the burning-in of the sky is all too evident (look at the
> rim of the hills, where the slight denisty from the burning in of the
> sky overlaps the rim)). The figure at the right has been held back.
>
> Same thing here:
>
> http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/salgado/salgado_ethiopia.jpg
>
> The face has been dodged.
>
> I believe these are prints made by a 'master printer', but I would NOT
> print them this way at all.
>
images, and yes it is a bit distracting especially the burning of the
sky. But then with out the burning the clouds would have been mostly
blown out and the photo would lose a lot of its dramatic feel. Overall
given the image on the negative I think this is about as good as your
are going to do.
Scott
UC
Scott W wrote:
>
> >
> I agree that the burning and dodging are pretty obvious in those
> images, and yes it is a bit distracting especially the burning of the
> sky. But then with out the burning the clouds would have been mostly
> blown out and the photo would lose a lot of its dramatic feel. Overall
> given the image on the negative I think this is about as good as your
> are going to do.
>
> Scott
I'm not sure. I'd like to see a straight print of these. I'm becoming
less satisfied with these crude techniques. For decades, this sort of
thing has represented 'mastery' of printing. Sure, I learned to put my
hand on the print in the developer to warm it up in a spot that needs a
little help, but today I really doubt that such measures are going to
save a marginal image.
Greg "Blank" - Lizard King.
"Scott W" <bip...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> UC wrote:
> > Be wary of the notion tht a great deal of expertise is required to get
> > good prints. A good negative prints itself. You are just the 'midwife'
> > to the birth. As imentioned before, I do far less burning and dodging
> > these days than I used to. I tolerate far less manipulation, and even
> > expert manipulation is all-too-visible. I have come to prefer the
> > unaltered print for the most part.
> >
> > Consider this iamge:
> >
> > http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/salgado/salgado_covers.jpg
> >
> I agree that the burning and dodging are pretty obvious in those
> images, and yes it is a bit distracting especially the burning of the
> sky. But then with out the burning the clouds would have been mostly
> blown out and the photo would lose a lot of its dramatic feel. Overall
> given the image on the negative I think this is about as good as your
> are going to do.
>
> Scott
In a perfect world one could use a little flash and a grad neutral
density filter. No burning required.
UC
Greg "Blank" - Lizard King. wrote:
> > I agree that the burning and dodging are pretty obvious in those
> > images, and yes it is a bit distracting especially the burning of the
> > sky. But then with out the burning the clouds would have been mostly
> > blown out and the photo would lose a lot of its dramatic feel. Overall
> > given the image on the negative I think this is about as good as your
> > are going to do.
> >
> > Scott
>
> In a perfect world one could use a little flash and a grad neutral
> density filter. No burning required.
This is the problem I have with T-Max 400 (TMY). I don't know what film
Salgado used here, but Tri-X or similar films would accommodate this
sort of scene better than TMY. Tri-X falls off in the highlights,
whereas TMY gets denser.
If he used Tri-X, TMY would have been worse. If he used TMY, Tri-X
would have been better.
Gareth
I was taught by one of Australia's best printers - Gordon Undy (based
in Sydney) - who, in turn, had done courses with Paul Caponigro and (I
think) George Tice. Gordon taught Murray Fredericks - who is a superb
printer and recognised as one of Australia's best landscape
photographers. See
http://www.murrayfredericks.com.au/
(I should hasten to add that I am not even close to being in either
Gordon or Murray's league!)
You can waste a lot of time and paper (and not get very far) if you are
not taught properly - a bit like your golf swing, you need to get the
fundamentals right.
Cheers
Gareth
Gareth
Patagonia, especially
Scott W
> I'm not sure. I'd like to see a straight print of these. I'm becoming
> less satisfied with these crude techniques. For decades, this sort of
> thing has represented 'mastery' of printing. Sure, I learned to put my
> hand on the print in the developer to warm it up in a spot that needs a
> little help, but today I really doubt that such measures are going to
> save a marginal image.
I think a straight print would be pretty lacking. For what it is worth
I don't like to bring in the sky if it is going to blow out, I pretty
much give up on the photo as not worth trying to fix. But in this image
the people at the main subject and the sky adds a dramatic setting, so
I think it was worth the artifacts to bring it in. Clearly this is a
matter of tastes and it is easy to see how one could get sensitized to
these kind of artifacts.
Scott
UC
Scott W wrote:
> UC wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure. I'd like to see a straight print of these. I'm becoming
> > less satisfied with these crude techniques. For decades, this sort of
> > thing has represented 'mastery' of printing. Sure, I learned to put my
> > hand on the print in the developer to warm it up in a spot that needs a
> > little help, but today I really doubt that such measures are going to
> > save a marginal image.
>
> I think a straight print would be pretty lacking. For what it is worth
> I don't like to bring in the sky if it is going to blow out, I pretty
> much give up on the photo as not worth trying to fix.
Stay away from TMY, then!
> But in this image
> the people at the main subject and the sky adds a dramatic setting, so
> I think it was worth the artifacts to bring it in. Clearly this is a
> matter of tastes and it is easy to see how one could get sensitized to
> these kind of artifacts.
>
> Scott
I suppose for an audience of non-photographers, they add something, but
I find them distracting.
Mayvbe Neopan 400 in Acutol has spoiled me, because I sure don't have
the need for such extreme manipulations. I keep telling people that
Tri-X in Rodinal sucks (although I am not sure that's what was used
here). I also think I might be able to make beter prints than these, if
I were motivated enough ($$$$).
hug...@gmail.com
that it's not the "master" part that concerns me, but the "printer"
part. I know where I need to go to get the technical know-how, but
what I didn't know was the path to professional (i.e. making a living
as) printer. I'm getting a better idea now. I've been a amateur for
years and started studying photography a few years ago at university,
but dropped the course after a year. I wasn't learning anything there
I couldn't learn on my own. Since then I've built a darkroom and have
been slowly making progress. I'm thinking now what I need is some
expsoure to workshops/seminars, followed by some sort of related job
and then a roll of the dice. And of course, lots of time in the dark.
While we're at, what cities (anywhere) have the most printing "action."
New York and Paris come to mind, but where else? Hugo
Greg "Blank" - Lizard King.
"hug...@gmail.com" <hug...@gmail.com> wrote:
Realistically anywhere can be an active location if you advertise.
Workshops are a great idea.
Mike King
Nebraska: Maxim Muir, haven't heard anything about him in a while, I
suspect he's gone.
--
darkroommike
<hug...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1141434634....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
Mike King wrote:
> Chicago and LA come to mind and we used to have a great printer in Omaha,
> Nebraska: Maxim Muir, haven't heard anything about him in a while, I
> suspect he's gone.
Maxim Muir used to post to rec.photo.darkroom a while back.
Checking the archives, it was about 10 years ago. There was
a mention of his retirement some time after that.
Stewy
"hug...@gmail.com" <hug...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's a question that I haven't seen asked on the internet: how does
> one become a master printer? I'm not looking for a quick recipe, but I
> want to know what it takes. Is it a matter of getting a good
> background in photography at a school, landing a job in a lab, honing
> your craft for years, and building a reputation? I'd really appreciate
> it if the printers out there could share how they did it. How did you
> become a master printer?
Master printers usually get where they are by trial and error. It's
usually a deeply underexposed or overexposed negative that *has* to be
printed. Most master printers have switched to digital - the learning
curve is not any easier, but it's a bit more comfortable, instead of
standing for hours in pale yellow light, you're stuck in front of a
monitor.
LR Kalajainen
nathantw
the best negative and made a copy of exactly how I wanted the 16x20 b/w
photo to look like. Unfortunately I didn't have my darkroom available
or I would have printed it myself (if you want it done right you've got
to do it yourself). The print had white highlights and black shadows.
What did I get? A flat print with gray highlights and very muddy
shadows. This was supposedly from a very reputable lab in San Francisco
that had "master printers." Of course I was at a loss when I saw the
finished product considering they had 5 days to print the thing. I
couldn't throw it back in their face and say "REPRINT IT!" I needed it
for a party that was happening the next day.
So, you don't need to be a master printer print. You just need some
common sense and a sense of pride in your work. Two things the printer
of my print didn't have.